Our most recent Charles Koch Communications Intern, Samantha Bonsack, recently had an article published in South Carolina’s premiere paper, The State. In the piece, Samantha presented the conservative rationale for repealing the death penalty. She wrote,

Like many conservatives, I used to support the death penalty, and like most people I wasn’t fully informed of capital punishment’s implications and risks. Nor did I ever consider that human error might result in wrongful convictions and death sentences. As my perspective changed and I learned more about the death penalty’s failures, I’ve concluded that it should be repealed.

Samantha went on to highlight the risks to innocent life, high costs, failure to protect society, and harm inflicted on murder victims’ families.

She closed by stating,

Wrongful executions are a real risk with the death penalty. They can occur as a result of prosecutorial misconduct, mistaken eyewitness testimony and reliance on forged or faulty forensic analyses. Given that flawed forensics has helped send people to death row, it is highly likely that the United States has executed innocent individuals.

How many such errors should we be willing to tolerate? For me, as a pro-life conservative, the answer is clear: none.